Project NOAH (Philippines)


Project NOAH is the Philippines' primary disaster risk reduction and management program. It was initially administered by the Department of Science and Technology from 2012 to 2017, but is now managed by the University of the Philippines.

History and services

Project NOAH was a response to President Benigno Aquino III's call on a better disaster prevention and mitigation system in the Philippines in the aftermath of the destructive Tropical Storm Sendong in December 2011. It was publicly launched by President Aquino, project head Mahar Lagmay, and
other government officials in Marikina on July 6, 2012. The program combines science and technology for disaster risk reduction and management. It is also a responsive program that aims to provide a 6-hour lead-time warning to agencies involved in disaster prevention and mitigation. The project also uses advanced technologies to enhance current geo-hazard vulnerability maps. It is also being developed with the help of the National Institute of Geological Sciences and the College of Engineering of the University of the Philippines; the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration ; the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology ; the Advanced Science and Technology Institute, and the Science and Technology Information Institute. The project is now composed of twenty-one institutions from the local and private sectors, including media and telecommunication companies.
The program involves seven major components described as follows:
The program has been dubbed as the country's flagship disaster prevention and mitigation program.
In January 2017 however, the Philippine government announced that Project NOAH would be shut down effective March 1, citing the lack of funds; it was supposed to remain in operation until February 28, 2017 only. On February 23, 2017, the University of the Philippines decided to adopt Project NOAH and continue its operations upon the termination of its administration by the Department of Science and Technology on February 28.
The last component completed before the end of its DOST-administered era was the Integrated Scenario-based Assessment of Impacts and Hazards , which sought to translate hazards mapped by the project into municipal-level risk assessments that detail the level of exposure and vulnerability of a community. The component allowed citizens to contribute ground-level risk information through the use of OpenStreetMap. The component resulted to completion of 16 provinces mapped with 2.2 million structures added to the database.
On June 20, 2017, the University of the Philippines relaunched the UP Resilience Institute with Project NOAH, now called NOAH Center, as its flagship program.

Mobile application

The official mobile version of project NOAH was launched by then-DOST Secretary Mario Montejo and Smart Communications on 17 October 2012. The app was developed by Rolly Rulete together with Pablito Veroy and Jay Albano. The mobile application prototype was originally written in HTML5.

Awards

International